One of my favorite podcasts is David McRaney You Are Not So Smart. He recently interviewed Lilliana Mason, author of the book Uncivil Agreement, How Politics Became Our Identity. It's a great interview about an interesting book and you should check it out. When I first listened to this interview some months back, I was fascinated and I've been meaning to write about it ever since. At the end of the interview it takes a very interesting turn. McRaney asks “What do we do? How do we fix it?”

Now you say in the book that as long as this social divide is maintained, then we’re going to behave more like warring tribes than unified nations of people who have different values and different ideas about what policies should be enacted. Now, it’s just like the side has to win and the other side has to lose, no matter what. I feel like these are both the same question, which is, “What do we do? How do we fix it?” I’m just going to stop talking and let you talk as long as you want about that, because I think that is the thing that people want to hear most from you, once you have made them feel as bad as I currently feel.

Mason then goes on to explain a number of things and suggests that one can practice techniques to avoid snap judgments and stereotypes "you can create, by practicing, a secondary response which can follow the first one relatively quickly that says wait don’t assume that. Give this person a chance. They’re a human being. They have family. They care about people." And then the kicker:

The problem with this is that it requires motivation.

People from more homogenous groups, for instance rural white and Christian, are seldom exposed to other religions, races, or cultures "and the more isolated they are, the less they’re going to be motivated to try to understand outsiders." Conversely, those who have social circles including people who are racially or religiously distinct from them have more motivation to be tolerant. "That means the people who are probably reaching out to you saying, 'I want to change this. I want to be more tolerant,' are the people who are already more tolerant and probably more exposed to people who are unlike them."

This itself falls along party lines:

What I found is that people who are largely in the Republican Party, because the Republican Party is largely white and Christian and straight, they tend to be socially exposed to other partisans who are very similar to them. It’s relatively rare for a Republican to meet another Republican who is racially or religiously distinct from them. Democrats are the party of everybody else. Democrats were 56 percent white, 19 percent black, and 17 percent Hispanic in 2016. So, for Democrats, any given Democrat is likely going to be exposed to another partisan member or another party member who is racially or religiously distinct from them, because there are plenty of very religious Democrats who are people of color, and there are plenty of very secular, white Democrats. Within the larger party umbrella, Democrats tend to be exposed to people unlike them on a much more regular basis, or at the very least they think of the people in their party and their group as more diverse.

The people who need to try the most are the people who are the least inclined to try.

Saying everyone needs to behave the same way to fix this problem is not exactly correct, because it’s the people who are the most socially isolated who really need to practice this the most. It’s unclear to me exactly how to motivate that, because that’s an extremely threatening thing to say to somebody who feels very comfortable in their homogeneous socially homogeneous group.

This to me is similar to the paradox of fact checking. For those that want to know the facts, they're already doing fact checking. For those that need to live in a bubble, better fact-checking tools are not going to change anything because they won't use them nor will they trust them - they'll just scream fake-news whenever the facts don't align with their required alternative reality.

Mason wants us to stop framing things as a zero-sum game:

We need to find a way to step back and think, “OK, what’s the greater good?” Find a way to think about what is the best for the most people. Obviously, it’s not human instinct to do that. But we’ve done it before and we had crosscutting identities between the parties not that long ago. It is possible for us to have crosscutting identities again. That would link us to the other side in terms of thinking of them as human beings.

And the author provides a really good idea of working together in service to improve our understanding and compassion for each other.

The last thing that I’ll say is that the one policy that I’ve thought of this since I wrote the book that could work would be service. One way to get people of varying backgrounds to work together is to put them work together doing some type of service. Working in a soup kitchen or building houses for Habitat or working in Peace Corps or doing something in the military. The military is a giant melting pot of all different kinds of political orientations. One thing that could be helpful is to work together. This is my like moonshot idea.

We refer to them as "Trump 's base" but really that "base" the true #cult45 bunch, that roughly one-third that won't go away, is simply a cadre of racist, sexist, homophobic, folks. They were there before Trump, and more importantly, they'll be there after Trump (assuming there is an "after Trump").

They are essentially white-supremacists who fear losing their privileged position in society. Trump didn't invent them. He activated them and gave them a voice. Of course he doesn't really care about them, and in fact, deep down I think even they know that. They know he lies and he is mostly full of shit and they probably even know he is basically incompetent and a Christian faker - in fact, many evangelicals have said as much. But they support him anyway, because he successfully tapped into that fear and racism. He may be an idiot, but on this he beat them all.

Consider this exchange between Jeffrey Toobin and Rick Santorum, where Toobin claims "Donald Trump could hang on the ceilings having sex with anybody he likes" and "all that talk about character we heard about Bill Clinton and the role model to Americans, that's all nonsense, right?" and Santorum can only reply that "it's very disturbing to me and I don't like it" but he still supports him, to make Toobin's point.

Few of them will admit that they're racists, and in fact many sincerely believe they aren't racist; that's how denial and cognitive dissonance works. But it comes through clearly in their words and actions, sometimes subtle, often direct and outspoken. We keep wanting to say it's not about race; we want to deny it because we wish it were not so. But it is about race to a very large degree.

It's certainly not all Trump voters. Hillary Clinton took shit for it and continues to but she was absolutely right when she said "half of Trump's supporters" (not all) really could be put into a "basket of deplorables" -- that basket is out there now and they aren't ever going to change their mind about Trump because he let them climb out from under their rocks and claim their white-privilege proudly. They feel safe with their racism now being more blatant. They still use coded dog-whistle language and (supposed) "hoaxes" like the white-power OK sign, but the winks are out there in plain sight. White-pride, white culture, white identity movements, these are all part of the discussion now.

If you aren't aware of Q and the Anon army, the short version is it is a movement in which followers believe there is a highly placed agent or agents, perhaps a member of military intelligence or even someone in the Trump administration that has access to highly classified information, with the codename "Q" who posts intel drops on sites like 4chan for the Anons to decode. The Anons are the followers of Q. They believe there is a satanic cult, conveniently made up of all the usual liberal villains, starting with Clinton and Obama of course, and including many "Hollywood elites" too, and of course the media. The payoff is "The Storm" when all of them will go down, which is always just one more post away.

While many QAnons are just your run-of-the-mill MAGA zealots. Others claim they are "non-partisan" and claim their fight is "good against evil" where the evil bad-guys in this case are those practicing pedophilia and other atrocities and the good-guys are those trying to stop this global cult in a counter-coup. Since the bad-guys include the "deep state" military intelligence, the media, the democrats, most the world leaders, pretty much everyone except Trump and his died in the wool supporters, one cannot defeat them simply by gathering evidence and presenting a case to law enforcement. Oh no, it requires a 4-D chess game. And who better to orchestrate such a thing than the "really stable genius" himself, Donald Trump.

This is all widely discounted as whacky conspiracy theory and right wing fantasy.

Following on the heels of similar bullshit such as Pizzagate, it advances a fantastic web of deceit that wraps up Trumpism, deep state fearmongering, evil, satanic pedophilia rings controlled by the Democratic Party, investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, the Las Vegas shooting, and New World Order paranoia into a package easily and wholeheartedly promoted by internet cesspools and Alex Jones. - rationalwiki.org

But I want to set that aside for a moment. Let's, for the sake of argument, say there really is a massive cult of well-organized and well-placed pedophile bad-guys. If Donald Trump is the leader of the counter-coup, I say "No, thank you." There's got to be better way. I don't need to decipher a bunch of cryptic fortune cookie style "intel drops" to see who Donald Trump is. He's been showing us for more than thirty years. He has shown us he is a self-serving coward who lacks empathy. He's a pathological liar with no loyalty to anyone but himself. Trump has been married three times and has five children from three wives. He's an admitted adulterer and accused sexual predator (including pedophilia, by the way).

Hillary Clinton could be a pedophile. It's possible. But there has never been any evidence to show that. Or Obama either, who shows all signs of being a good family man and loyal husband and father. But with Trump, we don't have to look far to see his character flaws, and worse, much worse.

In order to embrace Trump as a savior in this, one has to ignore the blatant evidence right before our eyes and instead assemble incomplete bits from all manner of "alternative" sources, a narrative to fit the MAGA alternative-reality where Trump has none of the obvious character flaws and personality disorders that he displays on a daily basis. One cannot go back from there. Giving up ones principles is to give up everything, to forfeit oneself. Even if you win, you lose. If Trump is the only way offered to fight the bad-guys, then sorry, but I'll wait for something better. If the good guys in this story are like Trump, there's no place for me, just as if the people occupying heaven are the evangelicals condemning me and many people I love to hell, I'm not interested.

At Jeff Pulver's 2018 Spring Monage conference, I got to see Michael Allman give a talk entitled Blockchain and Voting. While the blockchain aspect of it is probably why he was on the agenda, to me that's a secondary factor. What I found most interesting is the idea of what Allman calls "direct democracy." In this model, he commits to voting as his constituency desires, issue by issue. Allman is running on the Republican ticket and describes himself as socially progressive and fiscally conservative "almost libertarian on some issues," he says. Allman will use a system he's created called Voterfied.com to poll constituents and get their views on issues. He then commits to voting with those results, regardless of his personal preference or his party's platform.

Direct democracy is where people vote on the issues, and however they vote, that is how I will vote in Congress. Instead of me telling the voters how I am going to vote, they are going to tell me how to vote. It is giving political power back to the people, which is where it belongs.

For the first time, voters can have a say on an issue-by-issue basis. Anyone registered in my district can cast their votes on important questions of the day through a website or mobile app I have created. I will be guided by the results of these votes, not by special interests, lobbyists, or anyone else.

I love the idea. Anything that tries to move past the existing two-party, identity politics stranglehold is a good thing. Now, I can't actually vote for candidate Allman because I don't live in San Diego County, the 52nd district, where he is running, but I support what he is doing. Of course, I don't expect either party to be particularly open to this approach. They want candidates that vote along party lines. But if the people start to demand it, maybe they will have no choice. That's what Allman and his team hopes.

We talk a lot about avoiding media spin and going directly to original sources. To that end, here's a few first-hand comments on what I saw.

There are a lot of different people, bringing different agenda to the women's march. Not everyone is on board with every one of these causes to the same degree. Whatever the official position of the organizers, from what I saw I would summarize the most unifying issues as:

Trump disapproval

Women's equality, generally

Reproductive rights

From what I saw, Trump is a powerful unifying force, as much for his vulgarity as his policies. A lot of the women involved in these marches aren't generally activists, or at least they weren't before Trump. Another republican, with similar policies, but without all the ugliness that Trump brings, might not stir the same kind of movement. To a large degree, items #1 and #2 above are effectively the same thing. Trump is equated with misogyny and represents a giant step backwards on human rights generally, and women's rights and equality specifically.

Many on the right characterize this movement as a pro-choice movement (of course they would call it an "abortionist" movement). The right generally, and evangelicals especially, have traded their last ounce of dignity and moral authority defending a morally indefensible man because they see the ends of making all abortion illegal justifies the means. For them, it's all about abortion. Obviously, reproductive rights, women's choice, is a big issue. There were probably no "pro-life" women marching in the march in San Francisco but choice has been an issue with other administrations and this march is certainly not just about pro-choice vs. pro-life as much as the right may want to believe that. It's much bigger.

Women do not approve, Mr. Trump. It's not entirely about you, but you are a roadblock on their path toward equality and they will march right over you.

When liberals say America is not great, they are accused of being unpatriotic. But the MAGA folks are saying it right on their hats and T-shirts. I think America is pretty great. But there are a few places where we are not doing so great on the world stage.

First on this list is education. A 2015 study placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science.

Next is healthcare. The Commonwealth Fund rates the U.S. health care system as the worst among developed nations. America is at or near the bottom across the board: access, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes. To make matters worse, there is how much more America spends on health care relative to other nations.

These are big problems, complex problems with continued long-term negative consequences on America and the American people. But are these the priorities for the MAGA folks? Probably not..They're more concerned about immigrants stealing their jobs and which bathrooms people use.

For his part, Trump made a lot of (sometimes conflicting) promises during his campaign, but in his first address to congress he laid out six pillars of his MAGA agenda: Immigration, ISIS, Trade, Tax reform, Infrastructure, and Healthcare.

None of these include education. On education, he has given us Betsy Devos, a billionaire who is universally opposed by civil rights advocates and education groups. Devos and the policies she advanced in Michigan are credited with decimating that state's education quality. In the mean time, Trump has filled his administration with anti-science zealots and taken an anti-science, anti-education stance at every turn.

On healthcare, Trump promised an amazing healthcare system, with lower rates and great care, but it appears he has no idea how to actually do that. His first plan was a tax cut for the wealthy wrapped in a "healthcare" bill and upon that failing, all he can offer now is repealing ACA as part of his mission to erase the Obama legacy but with no new plan to replace it.

The third priority where I consider America to be not so great is far more controversial and that is our imperialism run amok, the "military industrial complex" what we're now perhaps calling the "deep state." This is even more challenging given this really comes down to monied interests but I think we can begin to take this down, one small bit at a time. We interfere way too much in other countries' business and it seldom is good for America in the long run - in some cases, this is directly responsible for creating the exact terrorist movements that MAGA folks are so concerned about. Draconian immigration bans don't really do anything for this problem and, when it comes to foreign policy, besides a lot of "America first" bluster, it's not clear where Trump really stands and it certainly seems to be the place he is least qualified - and that's saying something, given how unqualified he is at pretty much everything, except being a con man.

So when I say America could be greater, those are my priorities, education and healthcare first and being quite easily justified by empirical fact. My third priority, imperial overreach, is admittedly hard to quantify. But in what ways is America not great for the MAGA folks? And when was it great before? Do they even know?

You dislike Hillary. You're not alone. I get it. But if you really hate Hillary, you need to hate Trump even more.

He stole your nomination and now he's giving the election to Hillary. Think about it.

If I was a strong Hillary supporter, I suppose I should say "Thank you." Because there probably isn't another person on the planet that could make people that were otherwise against Hillary, vote for her. For Trump's part, there probably isn't another democratic candidate either that would have enabled Trump to actually be a remotely viable candidate, to say nothing of actually leading in legitimate polls at one point.

Only Hillary could pull that off.

But now, his time has past. He's not going to win. Did he ever even want to win? I don't think so, but that's a conversation for another day. Either way, he is the best thing that could have happened to Hillary. If you hate Hillary, you should hate him even more for that.